


how many the sheep may be

by randomlyimagine



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Emotionally constipated Geralt, First Kiss, Geralt Apologizes, Geralt has feelings, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Non-human Jaskier cuz he's not allowed to die anytime soon, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Soft Geralt, Wolf Geralt, at least not at first winky face, eventually, feral geralt, in which Jaskier doesn't react well to the giant wolf following him around, not that it's super voluntary on his part lol, protective Geralt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomlyimagine/pseuds/randomlyimagine
Summary: There’s a wolf following Jaskier. It’s been following him for the past five days.It’s unsettling, is what it is. He’s a lot of things, but easy prey shouldn’t be one of them.Except, you know, in bed.Or: Geralt gets turned into a wolf. Physically and mentally. Jaskier gets an even less talkative travel companion. But at least this one can't yell about shit-shoveling.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 257
Kudos: 1184





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Started this awhile back, couldn't decide on whether I wanted Geralt's mind to be affected or not, finally decided and got rid of my writer's block after I read inexplicific's absolutely amazing Wolf!Geralt fic which you should all go read immediately (well. as soon as you're done reading mine.). 
> 
> Research on wolf behavior/body language for this fic is mostly from clips and coverage of the documentary The Kingdom of the White Wolf (couldn't find the whole thing online, tragically) about arctic wolves on Ellesmere Island, which is absolutely gorgeous.
> 
> Thanks to the Bounce a Coin discord server for support, validation, and incorrigible egging-on. Title from the quote "The wolf cares not how many the sheep may be," by Virgil.

There’s a wolf following Jaskier.

It’s been following him for the past five days.

It’s unsettling, is what it is. He’s a lot of things, but easy prey shouldn’t be one of them.

Except, you know, in bed.

Oh, it hadn’t been following him _constantly—_ that might well have done him in, through exhaustion if nothing else. But he kept seeing the wolf every so often. At first it was just flashes of white out of the corner of his eye. Then it was...more. A very, very scary more.

He had tried everything to get away from it: He’d tried running, even though that wasn’t exactly advised when it came to wolves. He’d tried pretending to sleep and sneaking away in the night. He’d tried puffing himself up as big as possible and yelling and shaking his fists a lot. He’d even tried throwing rocks, praying the whole time that the wolf wasn’t going to eat him in retribution.

The wolf did not eat him in retribution. It also was not hit by the rocks.

No, the wolf’s idea of retribution was apparently leaving the corpses of bloody rabbits next to his campsite in the night. Jaskier had just about had a heart attack the first time he’d seen the gruesome warning: That the wolf could get to him, whenever, and Jaskier would never even notice.

So he’s some kind of lupine stalking victim. It’s thrilling. Glorious. Heavenly. Transcendent. Ecstasy-inducing. _Sublime_.

He’s also _extremely_ fucking tired, because this situation? _Draining_. And stressful. Knowing that there’s an enormous wolf dogging his steps—and yes, he does crack himself up—makes it incredibly difficult to fall asleep at night.

As if he wasn’t having enough trouble with sleep before, between the hardness of the ground and plotting how to forever get out of singing the songs that made him famous.

But none of that stress compares to when he wakes up, opens his eyes, and finds the wolf sitting six inches from his face.

“ _Fuck!_ ” He shrieks, rocketing himself backward in elegant mess of limbs and blankets. His sleeping roll ends up half on top of him for just a second before he throws it at the wolf, scrambling backward—

He looks behind himself, frantically, looking for the fastest route out of the clearing.

He turns back half a second later and the wolf is _right_ in front of him. His sleeping roll has been dragged off to the side.

Jaskier punches it in the snout.

“Fuck,” he says again, really high pitched, before deciding that he’s already made the move anyway, and hitting its snout again.

That’s what they always say to do, if you encounter a wolf. Fight. He’s more a lover than a fighter, but he’s engaged in some fisticuffs in his time.

But never against a wolf, which is abruptly, terrifyingly clear as it growls at him, low and rumbling.

“Fuck you,” Jaskier snarls, aims for its snout again—

Misses. But what’s worse is that the wolf _lunges_ , growling, an enormous mass of white fur and saliva and _oh gods he’s going to die oh gods oh gods—_

His eyes close against his will. But then it occurs to a faint, hysterical part of his brain, he actually doesn’t want to see his beautiful skin torn to shreds, so it’s helpful.

Then the wolf is on him, and Jaskier braces for the end, his flinch involuntary and full-body.

 _Maimed by a white wolf_ , he thinks. _Poetic._

Pain doesn’t come.

There’s just weight on him.

Weight on him, and the scratch of matted fur, and all his limbs pinned to the ground. There’s breath on his face. It’s wet and hot and so, so loud in his ear.

It’s difficult to hyperventilate when his chest feels like it might be crushed under the pressure. He tries to move anyway, to push the wolf off of him or at least shift it enough to breathe properly, but he can’t move it even an inch.

Partly because _push_ is a bit of a misnomer, seeing as he can’t move either of his arms at all.

They’re pinned down with incredible precision, actually, the wolf’s limbs crossing his own twice in the perfect places to keep him totally immobilized.

The wolf is just sitting there. On top of him.

At least the growling has stopped?

Still seems unlikely he’ll live through this, though.

“If you’re going to eat me,” Jaskier wheezes, “just get on with it. Honestly the suspense is just too stressful, and I’m going to suffocate to death anyway, whether it be from your weight or the smell of your breath.”

The wolf shifts, and Jaskier has time to think, _Oh fuck_ , squeezing his eyes shut, he shouldn’t have said anything, shouldn’t have reminded it he was alive—

Something wet and rough touches his face.

Licking him. The wolf is _licking him_ , gods, is this how wolves decide if their prey tastes good?

He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, no need to see the end when it comes. He can’t help squirming away from the touch on reflex, the rough fur and the horrid breath, nosing against his face, pushing in and in, down, teeth so terrifyingly close to his skin, and his _neck_ —

He couldn’t keep still if he wanted to, even with the wolf pinning him, head straining desperately away from the wolf shoving its face into his neck—

Time stretched out, leaving Jaskier hyperaware of every movement, every failure to get away, every twitch the wolf made against him. Somehow, death failed to come.

Because instead of biting him, the wolf was…nuzzling him. Apparently. Maybe.

Eventually, the still-unnerving motion stops, and the wolf just rests its snout against Jaskier’s neck.

After a long, long minute of much suspense but no pain, Jaskier blinks his eyes open. He’s still alive, he notes with a long breath. Which seems like it’s coming easier than before? His chest is maybe feeling less squashed, so there’s that, but there’s also the fact that there’s pins and needles in his arm, and oh yeah, a wolf’s teeth next to his carotid, so.

“So,” Jaskier says, because that’s what he does when he’s experiencing most emotions, including gut-churning confusion and bone-deep terror. “This is happening. This is a thing, that’s happening to me right now. And happening to you, I suppose. Although technically, I’d rather say that _you’re_ happening _to_ me. But thank you for not killing me, I suppose, I do generally like being alive, certainly if the alternative is being mauled to death, not to jinx it or anything.”

The wolf’s face pushes again against his neck. For a moment Jaskier thinks he absolutely did jinx it. His muscles tense in preparation for whatever is to come—

The wolf moves its arms and lifts itself up off of him.

For a second—for _longer_ than a second—it seems far too good to be true. Jaskier keeps himself as still as he can, just in case. _Playing dead_ , his brain supplies, horribly. But his eyes stay absolutely fixed on the wolf, watching as it pushes itself up to its full height and then, instead of sampling the presumably delectable meal lying prone beneath it, the wolf steps back and away from him.

Only a few paces. Nothing to get to excited about, Jaskier thinks.

But then the wolf lies down, rolls over, and bears its stomach. Bears its _throat_ , too, head lolling back and tongue sticking out.

It’s still looking right at Jaskier.

“Umm. Fuck. Good wolf, getting off me like that, really appreciate it, truly, and lying back like that, I suppose that’s reassuring, at least you can’t lunge again from that position, should I take that as a declaration of intent, then?” Jaskier’s tempted to go for the dagger he keeps in his boot, because he isn’t helpless, _Geralt_. But no matter how fast he tried to go for the wolf’s belly, he’d never make it.

Jaskier slowly sits up, watching the wolf carefully for any hint of reaction, letting his mouth run on autopilot, keeping up the chatter in the most soothing tone he can manage. The wolf watches him, but it doesn’t react, even as Jaskier tries to subtly shake the blood back into his limbs and then boosts himself into a crouch.

And then he’s standing, and sweet Melitele, it is time for him to exit stage left. The wolf is still laying there, prone and immense.

Slowly, slowly, he reaches for the strap of his lute. Everything else he can replace, if he truly needs to. Grabs it, makes sure to carry it loose on the side, where he can drop it quickly if anything goes wrong, and starts to step back—

The wolf growls. Its ears are pricked and the dopey almost-smile it had somehow managed is gone.

“It’s all okay,” Jaskier says, “I’m sure you have more important things to do than hang out with little old me, so shh, shh, I’m just going to keep on heading out—” He takes another step backward, and another.

The growling intensifies. The wolf is no longer on its stomach.

Another step.

The wolf barks and snaps its mouth forward.

“Fuck!” Jaskier shouts, letting his feet give way under him. Not because the wolf actually touched him, so much as because this is clearly a losing proposition.

“Fine!” Jaskier shouts. “Have it your way!”

Because fuck it. He is tired, he is angry, and he has spent the past five days intermittently scared out of his fucking wits. He couldn’t lose the wolf if he tried, it’s another day to the nearest village, and the wolf hasn’t actually hurt him. Seems more interested in nuzzling him than hurting him, really.

The wolf is back on the ground, lying on its stomach this time. Its tail started wagging as soon as Jaskier sat down.

His bedroll is only a few paces away. The wolf perks up as Jaskier begins to move, but settles back down when it sees what he’s going for.

Jaskier doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep, mind, but the woods are fucking cold, and the wolf is lying back on its stomach again, so he’s at least going to try.

\--

It takes Jaskier ages to fall asleep. _Ages_ , and all thanks to the apex predator that decided to invade his camp and expose its belly.

He sleeps fitfully, at first, mind on edge, senses jangling with every crackling leaf and gust of wind.

But when he wakes up, it’s from a deeper sleep than that.

He wakes up warm, comfortable, and exhausted. The ground isn’t digging into his back, for once, and the blanket pressed up thick and lovely against his side is so cozy—

Blankets aren’t usually quite that rough, though. And Jaskier doesn’t travel with any furs.

The previous night crashes in on him at the exact same moment he realizes the wolf is curled up against him.

 _Fuck it. I’m not drunk enough for this_ , Jaskier thinks as he forces his eyes shut and angrily attempts to force himself back into slumber.

Somehow, eventually it works.

\--

When Jaskier wakes again, it’s proper morning, the sun shining crisp through the trees, not the slightest lightening of the sky he’d last seen. It was predawn then, he realizes, and no wonder he managed to go back to sleep, with the sky dark enough to keep him tired but just light enough to offer comfort to the sort of creature who couldn’t see in the dark.

Although, actually, it’s still some wonder he managed to fall back asleep, because the wolf is still pressed against him. Curled up against his side, its head resting on Jaskier’s chest.

And it’s already awake. Just…chilling. Hanging out. With a random bard it had stalked for days on end.

It occurs to Jaskier, belatedly, that this might not actually be a normal animal.

But can he risk giving away what he now suspects—?

He flashes on the wolf bearing its stomach—well, bearing _his_ stomach, that had been quite plain for Jaskier to see—last night and decides it’s worth a try.

( _A white wolf, a white wolf_ , something in him whispers, and Jaskier doesn’t know whether he feels hope or dread.)

“You know, I’m actually quite experienced with all manner of curses and unnatural creatures, so let’s just cut to the chase,” he says. “Are you really a wolf?”

The wolf just blinks at him. Jaskier narrows his eyes.

“Was that blink supposed to be a sign? Because I have to tell you, if so, you should really pick something less subtle, that’s quite ambiguous. But we’ll go with it for now, so if you’re not actually a wolf, in whatever way, do me a favor and blink four times.”

The wolf does not blink at all.

“Alright then,” Jaskier says, a frown tugging at his lips. “If you can understand me, blink four times.”

There’s _a_ blink, but it’s the normal blink of an animal that has to do so periodically.

“Blink four times if you’re just refusing to answer because you’re an asshole.”

Nothing.

Jaskier huffs. “Fine. But you better not be lying to me, you know! I’ll take inaccurate silences as _no_ s, and thus lies in full, not even just by omission!”

The wolf does not appear to register the threat.

Jaskier lets his head sink back down, into the slight cushion of his bedroll.

The wolf picks up his head and then brings it right back down to nuzzle against Jaskier’s chest.

It’s a beautiful creature, up close and in the daylight. Breathtaking, not out of physical perfection, because the wolf’s fur is certainly matted and there are smudges of dirt across its paws and snout. Breathtaking because it’s something wild, untamed, or at least it appears to be, and how many humans have ever gotten to experience this closeness, this vision, and lived?

Jaskier enjoys rarefied sights, uncommon experiences. Even if they’re with things that could kill him.

(He used to have Geralt, to take care of the things that wanted to kill him. But Geralt made it perfectly plain that that’s no longer the case.)

The wolf nuzzles his chest again, a moment longer this time, and then rolls over himself, putting just a bit of distance between himself and Jaskier, and exposing his belly.

Jaskier thinks he was right, yesterday. It is a declaration of intent.

“You know, if you’re not actually a wolf, and you want anything from me, you really do need to tell me.” Can wolves somehow not blink multiple times in a row? “Maybe bark four times.”

The wolf’s tongue stays lolling out of his mouth.

“Well then. I guess I’m going to break camp.” Jaskier grimaces, a bit at the situation but mostly at the thought of getting out of his bedroll and into the cold morning air. But there’s nothing for it, and he pushes himself to his feet. “You better not follow me this time.”

\--

The wolf follows him.

Only now, the wolf is apparently no longer satisfied to keep his distance, peering out from between distant trees once or twice a day.

No, now he is walking with Jaskier, right in the middle of the beaten dirt road.

Oh, the wolf strays ahead sometimes, and the first few times it happened Jaskier thought he was finally about to be rid of the thing, but it always waited for him a bit up the road, or else loping back to rejoin him. Sometimes it will investigate the sides of the road, the plants, or whatever scents had been left by something passing through. But it makes sure to never let Jaskier get to far ahead.

Because he didn’t spend long enough following around a different White Wolf.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit the response to this has been awesome?? Haven't replied to all of the comments yet but definitely will soon. Yall are great and have been super inspiring of more writing, so I got this done a bit faster than I expected. Hopefully will keep coming at something like this pace! But it looks like I'll need to move in literally a week, so, you know, don't be surprised if there's a delay.
> 
> Wish me luck finding an apartment with a week's notice lol. (I'm not being evicted or anything, I'm fine, just a bit stressed, housing variables ended up changing at the last minute.)
> 
> Anyway! The fic! Now with some insight into our local wolf's head.

When they reach the next town that evening, Jaskier figures he’ll finally return to his life as a solo traveler. After all, this wolf might be neither shy nor aggressive to a lone human, but an entire settlement of them? No way it will want to join him.

He is, apparently, wrong about that.

The town isn’t big enough to have gates or anything, but there’s a low stone wall surrounding the settlement. It’s enough for some defense, but not much.

Jaskier walks past the wall where it opens for the road. The wolf follows him right through.

Jaskier resists the urge to pout. It’s unproductive, given that there’s no one else to see it, so he just whirls on the wolf instead. “Alright, no! Bad wolf! This? This is a _human_ place. Last time I checked—and I did literally check—you are not a human, so go back to the woods, shoo!”

The wolf completely ignores the shooing gestures he’s making with his hands, and in fact walks closer to him.

“What are you _doing_ , humans do not even _like_ wolves, they will try to _stab you_.” And okay, maybe a few days ago that would’ve sounded like a good outcome, but the early spring nights are very cold, and the wolf isn’t. That’s definitely all Jaskier’s reaction is, recognition of an informal debt. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that the wolf is looking at him just a tad forlornly. Or the fact that the wolf steps forward and nuzzles his snout against Jaskier’s leg.

The nuzzling is strong enough to make him stumble back a step. It is _not_ endearing.

“ _Noooo_ ,” Jaskier says as the wolf winds around his legs. “Shoo! No wolves allowed!”

The wolf, predictably, ignores him. And keeps rubbing up against his legs. Jaskier’s pretty sure he even sees a hint of tongue—yep, the wolf is licking him. How much are wolves like dogs, really? Because if a random, apparently wild wolf is kissing his pants, Jaskier might just not get over the surrealness.

Frowning deeper, Jaskier musters his courage—not _that_ much, at this point, the wolf seems fully uninterested in hurting him, and anyway he’s never been accused of having much sense—puts his hands on the wolf’s face and chest, _ignores_ the way the wolf presses into him, and pushes the wolf away.

The wolf lets himself be pushed back, which is nice of him, really.

He stares up at Jaskier, gaze steady and calm. There’s an uncanny steel behind those eyes, a profound intelligence—but an alien one. Something much older than the domesticated dogs that humans had created to herd sheep and sleep at the foot of their beds. Something wild—not in the sense of being uncontrolled, but of being utterly beyond human sensibility.

The wolf is sizing up Jaskier, that much is clear. It’s laughable that he might deem a mere bard a threat—but suddenly, Jaskier is inexplicably unnerved by the prospect of being evaluated and found wanting.

Then the wolf steps forward again and headbutts him on the leg, just hard enough to make him take another step toward the town, and the moment is broken. But the impression lingers: Even if the wolf had looked like a dog, no one would have ever believed him to be one, not if they were stared at like that.

The wolf headbutts him again and then barks, low and half a growl.

The wolf turns and walks toward the village all on his own, matted white coat golden in the evening sun.

Jaskier sighs and follows. This is, apparently, happening.

\--

The wolf follows his packmate through the human settlement.

 _Packmate_. It’s new. The wolf doesn’t remember den or pack or belonging. He must have once had them, he feels like he must have, an ache in him.

But he doesn’t remember. Remembers only a human standing over him, howling, smelling of rage and fear and satisfaction.

She howled again and he was falling through the air like falling off a cliff, but there was no cliff, nothing to make him.

He hit a tree, hard. The human started to close in on him.

He turned and ran and ran and ran. But there was nowhere to run to, he kept feeling like there should be somewhere. Pack or den or both.

Nothing. Just forest. Hunting and searching. Need-to-find an ache in his paws and chest as he ran and ran for days and days.

Then a scent through the trees. Familiar.

He didn’t know why, at first. Trailed after the human until he figured it out, then a bit longer.

He didn’t know why his packmate was a human. Later, he decided he didn’t care.

He’d been by himself long enough.

Now, the packmate is making noise at him. The wolf walks alongside his packmate and lets the chattering wash over him. He can’t sink into the sound the way he wants because he has to stay alert.

Besides, the wolf doesn’t know what the noises mean, because his packmate is making human-noises.

That’s not the only thing he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why his packmate smells afraid. Why his packmate has smelled afraid for days. The wolf had stayed back, at first, keeping watch, lying in wait for whatever was scaring his packmate.

But there had been nothing.

And his packmate…hadn’t seemed to know him. His scent—flowers and linseed and sweat-salt and dirt—had been swallowed by fear, acrid and unpleasant.

It’s unfamiliar. The wolf recognizes his packmate’s scent, vaguely, but he does not recognize the scent of his packmate in fear.

Something is wrong with his packmate. He is afraid and he doesn’t remember the wolf and he doesn’t even remember how to communicate with the wolf.

The wolf is going to disembowel whatever made his packmate forget and stink of fear.

\--

When they reach the center of the town a few minutes later, the wolf falls into step behind Jaskier. Jaskier appreciates it, honestly—not that he has any illusions that the wolf thinks Jaskier is the one in charge here, but it's reassuring, somewhat. At the very least it means that the villagers will be less likely to notice a genuine wolf in their midst.

Less likely to notice. Pft. It'll be a miracle if someone hasn't sent for the hunters already.

“Absolutely _no_ acting wolf-like, you hear me?” Jaskier says to the animal that probably can't understand him. It turns when he speaks, though, so it _looks_ like it's listening, and thus Jaskier remains skeptical of its mundanity. “No growling at people, no snarling, definitely no lunging like you did with me. And if you kill anyone, even just a little bit, we are _done_ , wolf, mark my words!”

The wolf cocks his head a bit, but otherwise doesn't respond.

Jaskier sighs and leads his erstwhile, fuzzy companion toward the tavern.

It's probably not worth the coin to request a bath for a wolf, if the inn would even let him bathe a wolf, if the wolf would even let himself be bathed. Which, you know, would never happen on either count. Jaskier didn't even want to imagine how much wolf fur would gunk up the tub.

Plus, what wolf would enjoy being bathed? That didn't seem like a particularly wolf-like thing. And ugh, the wet dog smell, ugh.

“I'll just tell everyone you're a rare, Northern breed of hunting dog. Maybe they'll buy that.” They're all in the way in Verden, and not even a major city in Verden, just a tiny town, barely worth calling a hamlet, really, and less cute that the term implies, so how likely is it that any of the residents have ever been far enough north to contradict him? “Just try to look nice. And...domesticated.”

Thankfully, the wolf does not eviscerate him for that suggestion. It's encouraging enough that for a second Jaskier debates trying to fashion a makeshift collar out of his spare lute strap, just to help build the illusion, before he decides that sounds like a good way to get his hand bitten off. After all, there's a difference between a wild wolf not hurting a human and a wild wolf letting a human fiddle around near his neck.

When Jaskier enters the tavern, eyes are on him, and then immediately on the definitely-just-a-dog-I-promise following him in. And listen, Jaskier _would_ tell the wolf to go outside, he absolutely would, but then it would become obvious that the wolf doesn't acknowledge his orders, much less listen to them, and his clever excuse—or web of lies, same difference, really—would be out the window.

Well, maybe not _web_ of lies. It's really just the one lie. Strand of lies? Strand of lie?

“What the fuck is that thing?” the barkeep growls. It's not nearly intimidating as either of the wolves that are—or, well, were—in Jaskier's life.

“So glad you ask!” Jaskier says, spreading his arms wide, gesturing toward the wolf standing—honestly, would it kill the animal to sit down and be less obviously gigantic—next to him. “This is my beloved companion”—shit, he needs a name, why didn't he think of a name for the wolf, what the fuck else was he busy thinking of—“Geralt!”

Well. That is indeed the word that just came out of his mouth. Hmm. Usually speaking before he thinks works out a bit better for him.

But he's committed, and never let it be said that the bard Jaskier doesn't commit to his lies! “He's a rare breed of Northern hunting dog, acquired him when I was touring up thereabouts, some years back. The road gets so terribly lonely, after a while, you know, lonely and dangerous, especially for a poor, defenseless bard such as myself.” He gives his most winsome smile. “I know that he looks vicious, kind sir,” and the wolf does, really, unkempt and enormous, “but I promise you that he is very well behaved indeed. The perfect travel companion.”

The barkeep huffs. “Looks more like an attack dog.”

“An attack dog!" Jaskier exaggerates his offense, which isn't entirely fake. He's perfectly capable of attacking things on his own, if the need arises, thanks. Well, some things. Human things that aren’t too well trained, anyway. “What kind of bard has an _attack dog_?”

“Dunno. Don't meet a lotta bards.”

“Well, let me tell you, good sir, that no self-respecting bard would ever keep an attack dog. Why, my good friend, they would simply scare off our audiences, our adoring public! How then, kind fellow, would we ever manage to perform, much less eke out a living in this troubled world?”

The man looks like he mostly wants Jaskier to stop talking. Which is, of course, perfect. After all, if the barkeep wants him to stop talking, he can't exactly ask any more questions about certain maybe-dogs that are scanning over the room with an unsettlingly keen eye, now can he?

“I promise you, sir," and Jaskier raises his voice to make sure all the other patrons hear, because they are indeed looking at the wolf in wariness, “my companion will give you no trouble. He's as docile as the flowers I braid into his fur.”

The wolf, thank the gods, does nothing to contradict Jaskier's filthy, filthy lies.

“Now,” Jaskier smiles. “That settled, could I perhaps trouble you for a meal?”

He'll ask about performing that night later on, when his purposefully slightly obnoxious behavior is just a bit more distant in the man's mind.

Subtly wrestling the newly dubbed Geralt—because Jaskier's subconscious apparently hates him—into lying down under the table isn't easy, and does require a number of meat scraps of Jaskier's plate, but he manages. And no one gets even a little bit eaten in the process.

\--

Night has fallen. The wolf’s packmate is leading him away from the wood-den full of loud humans, and its smell of food and stink of something sharp and pungent. The night air is an improvement: it smells of grass and horses, mostly. The scent of humans is there, but diluted.

The humans smelled faintly of fear when they saw the wolf. Some of them stopped after his packmate had made human-noises at them, and some didn’t. That also feels familiar to the wolf.

The wolf’s packmate smells like relief. The scent of his fear is falling away slowly, letting the wolf smell sweat-scent from the heat in the wood-den instead. It’s a relief to the wolf, as is the way his packmate’s hackles have lowered and loosened.

They walk up to another wood-den, this one quieter, fewer humans chatting within. His packmate walks up to the entrance and then turns to the wolf and makes loud noises. But they’re still human-noises, not proper barks or yips or growls. His packmate is waving his forepaws, but in a way that means nothing at all.

Then his packmate pushes him again. It’s gentle. It’s not a belated greeting or an affectionate nuzzling. It’s an attempt to make the wolf go away. _Again_.

The wolf wants to growl in annoyance, but he’s been trying to stay quiet, since he realized that growls made his packmate’s heart race and scent spike with fear.

Had it been another wolf that hurt his packmate? That made him forget?

Either way, the wolf not leaving his packmate. Especially not when his packmate is scared. He doesn’t know why his packmate would think otherwise.

He ducks his head and pushes his packmate toward the wood-den entrance instead. Humans are sleeping in there, and the wolf has the sinking suspicion that this is where his packmate wants to sleep as well.

The wolf doesn’t like the idea. He wants to be in his own territory, away from so many humans, so many threats. He doesn’t know where his own territory is, and still aches to search for it, but finding a place in the woods to serve as a den, or even sleeping under the night sky, would still be better than a human dwelling.

But his packmate was cold last night. And his packmate has been scared for days. If this will help his packmate be less scared, then the wolf will do it.

The wolf nudges again, and like before, his packmate pants slowly and gives in. The wolf feels his tail wag at the success and follows his packmate into the wood-den.

There’s only one other human in past the opening of the wood-den. The wolf inspects the human for threats, inspects the rest of the first den chamber for any sign of an ambush, any potential dangers. There are none, but his packmate smells uneasy and has his hackles up again, so there must be something that the wolf hasn’t noticed.

Or maybe it’s part of whatever is wrong with his packmate. But the wolf can’t let his guard down and take that risk.

His packmate gives metal to the stranger and heads further into the den. The wolf follows up a series of small ledges and down a narrow passage and through another entrance.

His packmate puts his bags down and closes the entrance behind them.

The wolf immediately sets about the den-chamber, sniffing and inspecting.

It smells of other humans, but not like the territory of any human in particular: It smells of dozens of humans, some scents older than others, few overlapping in age. The wolf doesn’t like that. Hates it, even. But he doesn’t know where his own territory is, and his packmate has decided to stay.

Having deemed the room safe, the wolf jumps up on the ledge with the soft things. It is not in a corner, as the wolf’s instincts would prefer in unknown territory, but it is clearly the most comfortable spot in the den-chamber. The most prominent, too, which soothes a different instinct.

His packmate turns to him and makes wide gestures and human-noises. They sound…annoyed, maybe.

This communication difficulty is what’s annoying. The wolf doesn’t know what has been done to his packmate, but he will not let _this_ continue.

Stepping down off the soft-ledge, the wolf keeps his tail low but not curled in and his posture relaxed. He approaches his packmate slowly, headbutts him even more slowly, and looks up to check his packmate’s response.

His packmate is looking down at him, but human ears don’t move and humans do not have tails, and so his packmate is hard to understand. But it cannot always have been this hard, or they would not be packmates, so the wolf half hopefully waits for the gesture to be returned.

It is not. His packmate is making human noises, and his eyes are wider than usual. At least he doesn’t stink of fear anymore. Maybe the danger is receding.

Though the wolf is starting to wonder about his packmate’s ability to accurately judge danger.

Still. If his packmate wants to communicate with noise instead of his body, then the wolf will start there. He whines _friendly_ _greeting_ and _relaxed_ and waits.

More human-noises. Useless.

How does his packmate not even know how to whine at him?

The wolf repeats his greeting. Maybe he can get the human to return a human greeting. That at least would give him some understanding.

His packmate walks around him and starts shucking off his flat replacement fur instead. To the wolf, that seems like being ignored. He whines more emphatically, this time in clear displeasure.

The human just makes more human-noises. No gestures this time, since his packmate’s paws are preoccupied with the replacement fur. A different replacement fur, this time, which his packmate is putting on instead of off. That only makes sense, though. His packmate must be cold with so little fur on his body.

Huffing, the wolf walks over and headbutts his packmate one more time.

This time, the human touches him back. Not a headbutt, but the wolf supposes that his packmate’s head is inconveniently high. No, his packmate touches the wolf’s head with his front paw, patting down. It's slow and hesitant, and it shouldn't be. But it is a response, and the wolf's tail is already wagging at the first sign of progress.

Patting the top of the head is a gesture used by dominant packmates, generally. The wolf is not sure that he likes the implications of his packmate doing it to him. But his packmate’s head is high up, and maybe the wolf made an exception for his human packmate. Besides. This is first touch his packmate has initiated that wasn’t to push him away. So the wolf accepts the gesture and, tired from being on watch all day, deems that enough success for the night.

The wolf lies back down up on the soft-ledge, taking the side near the hole to the outside. It is covered with something clear, but it is still a weakness in the den-chamber, and the wolf is still on guard.

When the wolf’s packmate lies down on the soft-ledge, the wolf curls up around him. The wolf will find out what has been done to his packmate, and the wolf will fix it. The wolf will probably eat whatever did it. But that is for the day. Basking in his packmate’s presence, in not being _alone_ , is for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while! Moving sucks. But writing this was a lot of fun! Enjoy!

_Fuck it_.

Jaskier is going to bathe the wolf.

He got a good night’s sleep, and has once again woken up uneaten. Actually the wolf had cuddled him all night long. It was adorable, really, and would have been more adorable if the wolf’s fur had been in slightly better condition.

Look, it’s not the wisest idea he’s ever had, Jaskier can admit that. But seeing the mats and dirt in the poor thing’s fur—well, even if he wasn’t a soft touch, as a bard, he can’t stand for thwarted drama. And the wolf was downright sweet last night.

Besides, he needs a bath too. The perils of the road, and also the cold sweat from being stalked by a wolf for days on end. So he orders one, which he fully plans to use first, thank you, and resigns himself to a few hours of cleaning wolf fur out of the metal tub.

Jaskier also does his best to entice the wolf to hide _behind_ the door when the bath is brought, so that the innkeeper’s sons don’t suspect his brilliant plan.

He doesn’t succeed, to be honest, but he also seems to have underestimated the apathy of the innkeeper’s sons by an order of magnitude, so it’s fine.

Bathing a wolf. In secret. A truly wild animal, even if it seems to have taken a liking to him.

Well. Good thing he’s only selectively a coward. Because he’s about to lure that wolf into the godsdamned bath.

\--

Other humans come into their den-chamber, and the wolf only barely swallows the instinct to growl. It isn’t his den, so he’d be less justified, but they do seem to have use of this den-chamber, and the humans are _intruding_.

It isn’t quick, either—they bring something in, something large and smelling of metal and old water. And then they _keep_ coming in with buckets to pour into it.

Finally, though, the den-chamber closes again, and this time his packmate goes and does something to its entrance before starting to remove his replacement-fur.

It’s terrible camouflage. How is his packmate at hunting? The wolf can’t remember, but he has a feeling the answer isn’t _good_.

Then his packmate is climbing into the water the other humans had brought, and—

Oh, that must be how humans clean themselves. It seems unfortunately vulnerable.

The wolf supposes his coat isn’t in good shape either. He was running for—a while. The grime in it itches and a few mats pull at his skin. He wouldn’t have stopped to take care of it on his own, but if his packmate is grooming anyway, he supposes he might as well. He’ll just have to keep his ears pricked for danger.

He hasn’t cleaned himself since howling-human, so he hasn’t cleaned himself since he remembers. It feels more awkward than seems right. His tongue is clumsy at first, and his teeth keep missing as he tries to run them through his fur. But slowly he gets better at teasing out the dirt and knots.

His packmate is making human-noises at him again. He’s been doing that more and more. There are worse noises to have in the background, the wolf supposes, but it would be better if his packmate could talk to him properly.

He’s worked through most of the smaller knots in his fur when his packmate gets out of the water and starts making louder noises at him. More direct, with solid eye contact.

The wolf perks up a bit—someone may have stopped his packmate from communicating properly, but the wolf can still tell when his packmate is trying to get his attention.

The wide gestures his packmate is making with his forepaws also help.

That doesn’t mean he knows what his packmate is _saying._

And that’s when his packmate starts being weird.

He has the sense that his packmate is often weird. Hopefully the wolf knew what to do with more of it, before.

His packmate keeps pointing his forepaws at the wolf, then the metal-with-water, then the wolf. He’s doing it over and over, and the wolf isn’t sure what to make of it—does his packmate want him to walk over to the water?

Then his packmate comes over and puts a hand on his scruff and the wolf kind of wants to growl. Again, it’s a gesture of dominance—but a more aggressive one than last night. Or emphatic, at least.

But his packmate spent days being afraid, at least some of it being afraid of _him_. The wolf isn’t going to risk that happening again. And any contact with his packmate is…pleasant.

So when, after a moment, his packmate starts nudging him along by the scruff—not tugging, at least—the wolf follows. Right up to the side of the metal-with-water.

Then his packmate keeps pushing, but pushing up a bit, and gestures from the wolf to the water, up and over the metal rim.

Wolves do wash in lakes and rivers, sometimes. Not in the middle of _dens_ , usually, but in a way it’s convenient.

And the wolf supposes the water does smell like his packmate—although his packmate no longer smells much like him, a situation he’ll have to remedy soon.

So the wolf hesitantly puts his forepaws on the metal rim, and when his packmate’s human-noises get higher pitched and his scent tinges with anticipation, the wolf carefully climbs in.

The water splashes out of the metal, but it’s warm around him. His fur is floating just a bit, and the water smells like his packmate.

Something in the wolf’s chest relaxes, and then so do his muscles. This is _lovely_. No wonder humans do it.

And then—and then his packmate is grooming him. He would have thought his packmate would be too cautious, but no, his packmate is rubbing a paw over his fur, teasing out the dirt, and then his other paw comes in holding some kind of many-pointed stick—

The wolf is a bit wary, at first, as much as he trusts his packmate. But then his packmate runs the stick through his fur, and it feels so _good_ , it feels like his teeth running through it if he far more sets.

He can feel it pulling through the tangles in his fur, the way his packmate is so gentle as he starts on the edge of the mats. It’s so pleasant the wolf doesn’t even tense as his packmate accidentally pulls too hard at one of them, just thinks about how lovely his coat will feel when his packmate is done—and then his packmate strokes a paw along the underside of his muzzle in apology, and that’s one thing his packmate can still say, and that’s even better.

He lets himself go pliant in the water. It’s not deep, so he curls up at the bottom of the metal circle and rests his head against its edge, eyes drifting close and ears relaxing sideways. He’ll move when his packmate nudges him to, to get at the rest of the mats, but until then—

All the while, his packmate makes human noises at him. He’s been doing that more and more since they woke up. The wolf doesn’t listen to all of it, but his packmate is important, and this is how his packmate is stuck communicating, so he pays attention. Tries to see if he can find a pattern.

He doesn’t have much success—but lying there in the bath, listening and being tended to, he has the first realization: _Geralt_ is the human-noise that the wolf’s packmate uses to refer to him.

The wolf thinks so, anyway. His packmate keeps repeating it at him, looking more intently than at other times and making more directed gestures. The wolf is mostly sure.

That human-noise feels vaguely familiar. Maybe that is what his human packmate has always called him.

It doesn’t explain why his packmate didn’t seem to recognize him at first. Or why his packmate still isn’t treating him with the familiarity or physical affection of a pack member. But it is progress. At least he’ll know when his packmate wants his attention.

Human-noises are stupid.

After far too short a time, his packmate stops grooming him and starts gesturing at the outside of the water.

The wolf does _not_ want to leave it.

His packmate gestures more and more emphatically, and the wolf ignores him for quite a while, until his packmate actually leaves the den-chamber—

And that, that is not okay. The wolf drags himself out to try to follow his packmate.

And as soon as he’s clambered out his packmate comes back in and pushes him away from the water.

The wolf huffs and whines. The water had been _so warm_ , and then even cool, it had felt so _nice_.

His packmate is making human noises, but all the wolf can understand is _Geralt_ , still. He does understand, though, when his packmate goes to a corner of the den-chamber and pulls out a piece of dried meat from inside some well-worn leather.

…Clearly his packmate is more cunning than he’d initially thought.

Still. The wolf will have his revenge.

That revenge comes in the form of shaking all the water off himself, getting his packmate all wet once again.

His packmate gets louder and fusses, but still gives the wolf the meat, so that’s alright.

When his packmate takes him out into the human settlement, and one of the places they go is entirely filled with fresh meat, that’s even better. Actually makes up for having to put up with other humans that weren’t his packmate.

And when they get back to the large wood-den with their den-chamber, the wolf very much looks forward to spending the rest of the evening and the whole night curled around his noisy packmate.

\--

The first thing Geralt notices is the smell.

Lavender perfume and linseed oil and road dirt and a very specific sweat-salt. All permeating the room.

But Jaskier shouldn't be anywhere near him. Not after—

"You know," Jaskier is saying, "I really do think the second version is better. I may like the word _murmur_ , but it's just not working with this rhyme scheme. Unfortunate, of course, but the extents of my bardic talents soar much too high to be defeated by this."

It's the kind of rambling that Geralt has heard a thousand times. The kind he'd resigned himself to never hearing again.

"Hmm," Jaskier hums. "Done pawing at me, are you, my wolf?"

 _Pawing—_ he would never, no matter how much he had wanted to, once. What had— Had he come under a spell? He would almost have to have, to have done anything like _pawing_ , to get Jaskier to speak to him with anything approaching affection. Much less—

 _My wolf_. Jaskier had never called him that before.

Gods, his head hurts. The world is spinning at the edges, his vision is off—

It doesn't matter. What matters was figuring out what he's done. What's been done to him.

"Well, it's just as well," Jaskier is saying, standing and picking up his lute. "Duty calls, and so does my audience."

 _What,_ Geralt starts to say—

Tries to say. It comes out as a...a whine?

 _Jaskier, what's_ — More whines.

What the fuck?

"Oh, I'll miss you too, you sweet thing." Geralt has never in his life been called a sweet thing. "I'll be back soon enough!"

And then Jaskier is gone and the door is closing behind him.

It wasn't a dream—Geralt can tell instinctively. But what other explanation is there?

He'll have to ask Jaskier. Shatter whatever sweet illusion the bard has been fed. Lose that tenderness, again, all because of his own stupidity.

He stands to follow Jaskier, regardless of the pain in his head and whatever is wrong with his vision. Jaskier wouldn't be pleased to have his performance interrupted, maybe he could wait—

He's standing up on four legs. Why is he standing up on four legs?

Geralt looks down. What he saw, he only has one word for.

_Fuck._

Then the past few weeks flood back to him, and the word fuck is inadequate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLOT TWIST


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For context you may shortly need: pin, wit, and will are all Renaissance-era slang for penis.

No matter how fucked the situation is, it is clearly the work of magic, and that means Geralt has his training and experience to fall back on.

 _Assess the situation_.

He is a wolf. A literal white wolf. Because…because the godsdamned sorceress had had a sense of humor.

He’d been gone, mentally. For weeks. Had run into Jaskier, stalked him, and…scared the shit out of him, in retrospect. He's embarrassed for his former self, not noticing that _he_ had been the source of Jaskier’s fear.

And now he’ll always have the memory of what Jaskier smells like when afraid of him. So…there’s that.

But that’s not relevant. What’s relevant is that Jaskier doesn’t seem to know who he is, given his memories, which are slowly filling in. And given the affection.

Or no, he remembers Jaskier calling him _Geralt_ , telling some human his name was Geralt, why did he— Hmm. No, Jaskier had just spit out a name. Guilt by association.

So Jaskier has no idea that he’s actually—hmm. That he’s actually Geralt. Again, explains the affection, although if Geralt didn’t have some vague memories of trapping the bard in place, he’d be questioning the man’s survival instinct even more than usual.

Oh—not that vague. He’d scared the shit out of the bard, hadn’t he? Another fuck up in a long line of them.

 _Assets_. Teeth and claws. A wolf’s powerful body. Already being with someone who’d gotten Geralt allowed into a town. _Try and look domesticated,_ indeed. Heightened hearing and smell, even if his vision showed fewer colors than usual.

 _Disadvantages_. No idea where he was. No idea where the sorceress was. No idea how to find his swords, his gear, his medallion, or—fuck. Roach.

And Jaskier thinks he’s just a—

Wait. Jaskier doesn’t think he’s a normal wolf. Or hadn’t, he’d tried to check. Multiple times.

If Geralt’s lucky, his lack of response won’t have permanently allayed the bard’s suspicions. That will make it easier to tell the bard what happened, given his limited capacity for communication.

…He’d tried to teach the bard to “speak” like a wolf. Of course he had. Why not. He didn’t have enough to be embarrassed over, with the curse itself. And with having assumed Jaskier was the one changed.

And with thinking of Jaskier as— As something he’s lost the right to.

But no matter how angry the bard really is at him, he’s by far Geralt’s best hope of contacting a sorcerer. Yen will be around somewhere, if they can find her—though Jaskier won’t want to see her, and Yennefer will want to see Geralt even less. Maybe Triss, then. Or a fucking hedgewitch, if it’ll help.

The sorceress he’d fought with was strong. He doesn't think a hedgewitch would help.

But talking to Jaskier. Communicating, anyway. That’s all he has to focus on.

Jaskier had left to perform, and— Geralt can hear him, actually. The tavern must be—is, he recalls—close. He’d probably be able to hear Jaskier’s singing with his normal hearing, even without a literal wolf’s ears enhancing it further.

It’s a new song. Geralt doesn’t recognize the tune. But that makes sense, it’s been months. And Jaskier was hardly going to keep singing about him, after what he’d said.

No, instead he’s singing about…

_And the wicked witch she came  
Her violet eyes aflame!  
To steal the white wolf’s prick  
After he’d been such a dick!_

Geralt’s eye twitched.

_“So let him live without!”  
And a cackle she did spout,  
And the sky did blacken out,  
And then the spell rang out!_

_A rot did then set in  
On the witcher’s little pin!  
The flesh, it all turned gray  
And it did molder and decay._

Godsdamned _fucking_ bard.

 _Little_ — _!_

Geralt does not need to hear this. He just needs to get out of the room.

Standing is easy enough, despite the pounding in his head. From both the music and the curse. It’s the door that presents a problem.

Geralt has wondered a couple times if he’d some day lose his thumbs, but he’d always assumed they’d be cut or bitten off.

_The witcher then cried out,  
With quite the pain-ed shout,  
“How dare you so malign  
This crowning jewel of mine?”_

His surge of annoyance makes his fucking _paw_ slide off the doorknob yet again.

Once, a song like that would have been revenge for the eunuch story. _Joking_ and _private_ revenge. But Geralt isn’t stupid enough to think that’s still the case, or that he deserves for it to be.

…Did the bard need to be quite so _petty_ about it?

Fuck. It doesn’t matter. He just needs to get to Jaskier. Get to Jaskier, somehow tell him what’s going on, and hope that Jaskier doesn’t immediately abandon him or chase him off.

He’s a literal wolf now. Jaskier could set the whole village on him. Just walk up to a farmer and say I’m sorry, my hunting dog has gone crazy, you have to kill it before it hurts someone. And the townspeople absolutely would. Geralt would be near defenseless in an unfamiliar body, and the villagers would be glad of the extra meat.

He wants to think Jaskier wouldn’t do that. Has never set anyone against him before. But Geralt has never given him such cause.

But no. Jaskier wouldn’t. Geralt’s the monster here, not him.

Gods, his head hurts. At some point he stopped pawing at the doorknob and started pressing his forehead against the door, hard.

It’s not the first time he’s gotten a headache while thinking about the mountain.

But then the room starts spinning and Geralt very abruptly realizes this isn’t about the mountain.

No. This is the curse. It’s trying to reclaim him.

And it’s succeeding.

\--

Why is he standing by the den-chamber entrance?

The wolf whines softly in confusion. The past bit of time is…muddled. He had thought he was past that.

But there was some sort of…urgency—

He’d wanted to get to his packmate. _Needed_ to.

But that doesn’t make sense. His packmate is fine. The wolf can still hear him, howling beautifully, even if his howls are distorted by the human-noises he makes during them. But he sounds energetic. Not in pain or distress.

The wolf calms at that knowledge. His packmate is fine. The wolf will keep watch over the den-chamber until his packmate returns.

The soft-ledge is very nice to lie on, though. He can keep watch from there.

\--

"You know, wolfy, that was a truly great performance." Jaskier says as he pulls open the door to their room. "Well, I suppose you don't know, since you weren't there. Or could you hear it anyway? Geralt could— Well. I don't know how strong literal wolf hearing is, as opposed to metaphorical— Wait. Are those claw marks on the door?"

He whirls on the wolf, who is sitting on the bed, innocent as can be, with a little wolfy smile and a wagging tail.

"Did you try to get out?" Jaskier asks, frowning. The wolf, as usual, doesn't answer, but then Jaskier supposes he hadn't really needed one. Those claw marks were not there when he left.

"Fuck," he says, "they're going to charge us." He'd finally gotten rid of the habit of thinking in terms of _us_ on the road, but here he is: a couple days with a wolf and he's already relapsing. "Well. Charge me. Not like you have any money—oh, stop your tail wagging. Bad wolf! _Very_ bad wolf, trying to escape like that."

The wolf does not stop with the tail-wagging, though he does get a bit less enthusiastic at the change in tone.

"Ugh." Jaskier goes and flops himself down on the bed. "So much for my post-performance euphoria."

He stares at the claw marks a bit longer before looking speculatively at the wolf—who had curled up around him the second he flopped down, and is presently resting his head on Jaskier's stomach.

"Are you _sure_ you're just a normal wolf who definitely can't understand what I'm saying?" Jaskier asks dubiously. The claw marks are centered very specifically and exclusively around the door knob, and that doesn't quite sound like normal animal intelligence to him.

The wolf doesn't do anything that could be construed as a response.

Jaskier sighs. He'd asked around before his performance, and the town does at least have a hedgewitch. He'll have to drag the wolf there first thing in the morning.

Hmm. And maybe not mention that in front of the wolf. Just in case.

The wolf, whom he has been very specifically only referring to as such.

“ _Ugh!_ ” Jaskier picks his head up off the bed just so he can drop it again. The mattress robs him of a satisfying thud. “Why the fuck did I stick myself with calling you Geralt?” he asks the thing that can almost certainly not understand him. “Normally I’m better at—ugh. Here I am, trying to forget the bastard, and then I go and say your name is Geralt, first thing that comes out of my mouth, like I hadn’t made reasonable success!”

The wolf, probably sensing his agitation, whines at him softly and nuzzles a bit against his chest. It really is a sweet thing. So affectionate. Unlike _some_ Geralts he could name.

Jaskier sighs dramatically. “How offended would you be if I changed your name now? Scale of one to ten. I know I called you Geralt before, and especially when I was trying to get you into the bath, because I needed to call you _something_ , but honestly, I really should’ve taken the time to think of something better. Hyacinth, maybe. Keep the flower theme. Or Daisy. Maybe Cream Puff? Naming you after a food feels a bit odd, though.”

He chuckles to himself. “Well, feels a bit too reminiscent of when I thought you’d eat me, more like.”

The wolf’s fur is so soft, now. Properly clean and shining like anything. Well, not shining, precisely, the inn isn’t well-lit enough for that. But glowing, perhaps, in the candlelight, white fur turned golden as the most splendorous sunset.

“Bah, maybe you’re too noble for Daisy. Should call you Rex. King of the forest and shitty little inns alike! Or Remus, I suppose, if I wanted to be _painfully_ obvious. But I’m a bard, so let’s say that I don’t.”

Jaskier’s hand had, at some point, come up to start stroking the wolf’s ear. He doesn’t quite know when that happened. But, well. It had looked so soft. And the wolf is leaning into it, stretching his head up to dig deeper into Jaskier’s hand.

Jaskier sighs again and pets the wolf more firmly. “You’d probably be annoyed if I changed your name, at this point. Or confused. Or, hey, maybe you’re smarter than that, but then again, you’re named Geralt and you’re hanging around me, so—”

There’s a hitch in his throat. It’s been six godsdamned months, there shouldn’t still be a hitch in his throat, even if it’s one that feels as likely to break into horrible laughter as into tears.

“Nope,” Jaskier says around the tightness. “Nope, I can’t do it. Can’t call you Geralt.” Not with the wolf gazing up at him so—well, adoringly, if he is to commit the poet’s original sin and read emotions into his subject.

“Adron could work. Calling you dark one, that’s nice and ironic. Casimir, too, since you brought me so very, very little peace in the beginning. Ooh, or Jacek, I can keep my flower theme!” A grin’s pulling at Jaskier’s mouth at the thought. One far more honest than he’d had while singing.

“Maybe I should write songs about you instead, Jacek,” Jaskier says, his other hand stroking down the wolf’s spine. “I need a new muse. And you’re far more pleasant, really. Incapable of saying mean things, too, even if you wanted to. Which of course I’m sure you don’t! Because you’re lovely, and so am I.”

The touch of another being—one that wants nothing from him, except, apparently, his company—is a balm.

Jacek it is. “My fierce little hyacinth,” Jaskier tells the wolf. He’d warmed to the thought of the wolf staying, over the past day or two, far more than he would have expected.

“You want to hear a song, Jacek?” Jaskier asks. He needs a laugh before he gets even more maudlin.

The wolf is still smiling at him. Jaskier had never spent much time around dogs, in his life, much less wolves. He hadn’t known they could do that.

It’s nice. Being smiled at like that.

“Glad to hear it, then.” Jaskier smiles, ruffling the fur in between Jacek’s ears. “This is a fun one—one of my most popular too, now, so truly, you are in for a treat. The envy of the Continent, you are, and not just for the softness of your fur!”

It would sound better with the lute accompanying him, of course. But it’s fine without. After all, he’d designed it to be both catchy and easily sung.

_“And the witcher was left witless,  
Left will-less, and dickless!  
His sword to sheath no more,  
Not even in a whore!”_

The wolf turns his head to lick at Jaskier’s fingers as he plunges into the rest of the chorus. It tickles. And it’s perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many wonderful wolf!Geralt fics where Jaskier ends up still calling him Geralt, for obvious reasons. Only so many white wolves in the sea, and all. But as I was writing I found myself taking Jaskier in a direction where it didn't really feel like he'd have that constant reminder. So, I give you Jacek! According to the internet, it's a Polish boy's name that means hyacinth. Hopefully it's not too visually similar to Jaskier lol
> 
> And yeah. It's not gonna be that easy for Geralt. Not remotely.


	5. Chapter 5

The hedgewitch is located on the very edge of town, as hedgewitches generally are: Humans are never too welcoming of those involved with the supernatural, no matter how much they need some magical help.

Jaskier, thankfully, is above such plebeian hypocrisy. Which is why there's absolutely no tension in his frame that could give him away to his maybe-not-actually-a-wolf-and-if-so-definitely-hiding-it companion.

Well. Maybe there's a little tension about the possibility of the maybe-wolf figuring out where they're going. But as he knocks on the door of the hedgewitch's cottage, Jacek’s standing there, looking cool as a cucumber. Calm, and much, much prettier now that he’s been bathed.

It's only a few seconds before the door opens, revealing the witch on the other side. She's quite short, hair curly and bright blond. Her shawl looks like she probably made it herself, and her fingertips are smeared with ink and dark blue dye.

Jacek perks up at her appearance, ears pricked and nose sniffing. Thankfully, though, he stays calm, because his body is as long as Jaskier is tall, and really, do wolves actually need to be that enormous?

"That's quite the dog you've got there," is the first thing the witch says, eyebrow raised and tone dubious.

Jaskier almost bounces in place. _Answers! At long last!_ "Is it?"

"...Is it what?”

“A dog?”

The witch’s silence speaks volumes. After a moment, she asks, “As opposed to…?”

To be fair, it’s possible that Jaskier should have eased his way into the subject. Given some sort of introductory preface. Said hello.

“Oh, you know, anything magic,” he says instead. “A human under a curse, a non-human under a curse, some sort of nefarious beast, a doppler, some other sort of shapechanger, et cetera, et cetera.”

The hedgewitch looks at Jacek, then looks back to Jaskier. “Do you have a reason to think that’s the case, or were you just wondering?”

“Well,” Jaskier drawls, “besides the fact that he’s a gigantic white wolf—not a dog—this far south, and wandering around after me tame as anything…yes. But it’s really better discussed inside.”

The hedgewitch had gone back to scrutinizing Jacek in surprise when Jaskier mentioned the wolf thing, and maybe that’s not the best sign, but a hedgewitch is still a witch. He’ll take what he can get.

“Fine,” she says after a moment, and nods. “Come on in.”

“Thank you ever so much, my lady,” Jaskier says as he follows her in, with the wolf following ever so politely behind him. “I am the humble bard Jaskier, by the way, and my companion is at least temporarily known as Jacek.”

“I’m Sabiny,” she says, walking through the cramped antechamber of her house. It would be small enough on its own, really, especially by Jaskier’s standards, but every surface is covered in herbs, jars, fabric, and contraptions that Jaskier could not even begin to name. There are a couple of plain wooden chairs shoved against the wall near the door, a small table between them, and Sabiny takes the one farther back into the house. “Tell me,” she says, nodding at the other chair, “what else makes you suspicious?”

“Suspicious is a strong word,” Jaskier hedges, although it absolutely is not. “Rather un-wolf-like behavior, really. What I mentioned. He seems to obey orders a bit too well,” he says, swinging down into the seat and patting his leg to signal Jacek to join him. Which he does, quick as any domesticated dog, though his eyes are roaming the new space and his posture remains tense. And he, unlike Jaskier, stays standing. If it counts as standing, on all fours. “And last night, when I was done performing, I came back to my room at the inn to find claw marks scraped right around the door knob, and nowhere else, as if he had known how to open it.”

“Hmm,” Sabiny grunts, and Jaskier is struck by an abrupt wave of nostalgia. Well, nostalgia and pain. But it’s quick enough to brush aside.

Sabiny turns to stare at the wolf for a few long moments, while the wolf stares back. Even without being subject to it, Jaskier thinks the wolf’s gaze is far more intense than it has any right to be. “Have you tried _asking_ if he’s really a wolf?”

“Of _course_ I did!” Jaskier sighs, flopping further back in the chair. Which is a mistake, really—it’s not comfortable. “Honestly. What do you take me for? Some novice fool?”

Sabiny snorts. It makes the freckles on her nose scrunch up, and Jaskier would hardly be himself if he allowed the situation to stop him from finding it charming. “I don’t think you want me to answer that question.”

…Sadly, still charming.

“Well. Hmm. I suppose I can forgive you that answer, if you tell me whether Jacek is indeed a real wolf.”

“Fair enough.” Sabiny shrugs, and leans in toward Jacek, inspecting him for a long moment before sticking out her hand.

Jacek leans forward and snuffs at it for a moment, like any canine would, before drawing back. And Sabiny is murmuring under her breath, quiet words that Jaskier can barely make out and can understand even less.

Jacek’s attention seems fixed on Sabiny too, his stare appraising, and holding within it the same piercing and utterly alien intelligence that Jaskier had seen before, in that moment on the road.

Jaskier suddenly doesn’t want to know the truth about Jacek—for Sabiny’s sake. Wants to leave before he finds out that he’s made a terrible mistake.

In that moment, it seems impossible to conceive that Jacek could be something human. But entirely possible he's something that would kill to protect a secret.

But then Jacek’s tail twitches, and his ears relax, and Sabiny’s muttering comes to an end.

There was probably no danger. Jaskier was probably just imagining things.

…What would be more dangerous: Bringing an unknown creature disguised as a wolf to someone who might find them out, or bringing an actual, wild wolf into close quarters with a stranger?

“I have spells against being attacked, you know,” Sabiny says, and _shit_ , does that mean that Jacek is about to _try_ —

“Just because you looked worried,” Sabiny says, lips quirked and tone wry. “Nothing’s wrong, but since you admitted this is a complete and strange unknown with very big teeth, I thought I’d clarify. Nothing attacks me in my own home.”

Jaskier lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Oh. Good. I—that’s good.”

“Wouldn’t have let you in if that wasn’t the case,” Sabiny says, leaning back in her own chair, away from her magical examination. “But it was a risk you shouldn’t have taken, if you still had doubts.”

“Ah. Well. Will be more cautious in the future, I suppose, but he has been fine in town, and with me, this whole time—”

“Listen,” Sabiny says, and for once, Jaskier does. “You asked if he was under a curse, or a shapeshifter, or some kind of concealment spell.”

“Yes…”

“Curses aren’t my specialty.”

And just like that the hope is falling out of Jaskier’s head. “They’re not?”

“Nope. Neither are shapeshifters or concealments.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m the midwife and healer for every small town and village for leagues around. Don’t have time for much else.”

“So you don’t know.”

Sabiny shrugs. “Yeah.”

That’s…that’s just great. “Why even bother examining him, then? Why not just send us away?” Jaskier’s tone remains at a reasonable pitch and volume only because he has learned not to piss off witches the hard way.

Sabiny scoffs. “I said it wasn’t my specialty, I did _not_ say I was useless. Most curses, I’d be able to detect. Magic originating from the creature it affects, less so, but still worth a try. So I examined your wolf, and I felt nothing. No magic at all.”

“…Then why didn’t you just say that?” Jacek’s ears start to slant sideways—hopefully at the wariness in Jaskier’s tone, rather than any ability to understand the words. Because it _sounds_ like the witch is saying that Jacek is indeed a normal wolf, except of course for the ways it doesn’t sound like that at all.

“It’s not definitive,” Sabiny says, fingers starting to play with the edge of her shawl. “It was possible I’d sense something. I didn’t. But it’s also _entirely_ possible that there is something there. And if there is?”

She looks him right in the eyes. “Then it’s far too strong for me to detect.”

The air flows out of Jaskier. Even the disappointment is still a bit of a relief. And Jacek—for he is definitely Jacek for at least a while longer, it seems—deflates along with him. Thank Melitele. This morning has been stressful enough without him having to calm down an angry wolf.

“Right. Right then. Well, thank you for your time.”

Sabiny’s services aren’t too expensive, thankfully, given the lack of definitive answers.

Jaskier waits until he’s a few hundred paces away from her cottage—well out of earshot for anything human—before he turns to the wolf plodding along peacefully at his side. “Are you _sure_ you don’t have anything to tell me?”

The wolf just wags his tail at him.

“Ugh,” Jaskier groans. “Fine. Be that way.”

He should let this go. Assume that Jacek is indeed a real wolf. _Accept_ that Jacek is indeed a real wolf. An amazingly docile real wolf with no other interest besides keeping Jaskier company.

“…Yeah, I’m going to have to find Yennefer.”

The wolf, of course, doesn’t reply.

\--

Jaskier doesn’t bother to stay in the town another night. It’s a tiny, shitty little place, and anyway, apparently he’s going to go find Yennefer, because he’s incapable of not looking the gift wolf if the mouth.

It’s ironic, really. If he had been willing to believe that the wolf was normal, or at least wait a bit longer before searching for confirmation, he wouldn’t have ended up standing in the middle of the well-beaten road, watching a Nilfgaardian patrol march toward him.

“ _Fuck_.” Jaskier has never cursed so feelingly. “Fuck fuck fuck, fuck fuck, shitting fuck.”

He’d known that Nilfgaard was moving farther and farther north, having been set back only temporarily by their loss at Sodden Hill.

He hadn’t known they’d gotten _this_ far. The region he’s in isn’t even next on their list, though it's known for being far too friendly to Nilfgaard. What is this, a scouting party?

Fuck. It’s definitely a scouting party. Because where else could they scout with impunity, besides the middle of nowhere?

Or, worse—friendly territory?

“Fuck,” Jaskier says again. Just for emphasis. It’s too late to duck off the road and into the bushes. Really, it was too late by the time he’d noticed them. But now, their gold crests are gleaming brighter and brighter against the black of their armor…

Equally unfortunate: It’s far too late to get Jacek off the road. By himself, he’d be a traveling bard—harmless, as long as they didn’t realize his connection to Geralt, who has the great misfortune to be the subject of a great many bounties. With a literal and enormous white wolf next to him, however, he is an oddity. A _noticeable_ oddity.

Also, he realizes with a sinking stomach, glancing at Jacek, probably a _threatening_ oddity. Whether the wolf has picked up on his fear or is actually intelligent or just really hates veiny black armor, the placidity he’d shown at the hedgewitch’s is _gone_.

The wolf has managed to crouch in a way that only highlights his immense size—and the way it makes him ready to pounce. His hair is standing on end, his ears are going straight out to the sides, his incisors are on full display, and as the soldiers get closer, the wolf starts _snarling_.

“No, no, come on, _nice Jacek_ ,” Jaskier hushes, unwilling to fully look away from the patrol. “Nice wolf, _nice wolfie_ , no growling, growling will _not_ get us through this.”

If anything, the wolf growls louder. Jaskier supposes that’s a point in favor of its mundanity.

It’s also a thing that really needs to stop immediately, before the patrol gets any closer.

And of course it’s at that moment, as Jaskier’s prayers are absolutely not answered, that the soldier at the head of the patrol—the captain, maybe?—draws his sword and shouts, “You there! State your name and business!”

Jaskier knows it would do him absolutely no good to point out their utter lack of authority here, but he’s still tempted. Even in the face of all the other men pulling out their own swords, like good little soldiers.

“Uh. Dandelion. And traveling!” He knows he sounds nervous, but that’s fine. Random patrols of invading soldiers _expect_ nervous. _Want it_ , often.

The patrol is close enough, now, for Jaskier to see the skeptical eyebrow raise under the lead soldier’s helm. “Dandelion. Is that supposed to be your name?”

It had been, once—a stage name he’d used in his first year or two at Oxenfurt, so long ago now that no one should be able to trace it to him. But he supposes that it is, technically, a bit obvious. “Er. It’s a stage name,” he calls back. “I’m a traveling bard, you see.” No point in denying it, what with his lute strapped right across his back.

“And your _real_ name?”

Jaskier, heroically, manages to restrain himself from snorting. Like he enjoys giving _that_ one out. “Jon,” he says instead.

“Jon the bard?” another soldier asks, the height of condescension.

“Yes, well, now you see the need for a stage name.”

“… _Right_ ,” the captain drawls. His grip on his sword tightens. “And your…companion there?”

“Oh, he looks quite ferocious, doesn’t he? I know he does, he’s bred for it after all, originally a hunting dog, you see, but raised to be naught but a companion. He’s harmless, really, an absolute—” sweetheart, Jaskier was going to say, but it’s rather undercut by a sudden snarl. “Well. He’s all bark and no bite, anyway. Just doesn’t like, you know, swords.”

“Some companion dog,” the other soldier snorts—the second in command, probably, by his position toward the front and his utter comfort with talking out of turn. “Swear to the White Flame it’s a fucking wolf.”

“Sir,” Jaskier starts to implore—

“Another bard with a white wolf,” someone jeers. “They’ve just got ‘em all over the place now.”

The captain and his second in command look at each other.

 _Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious_ — “Ah, I should be so lucky to be as famous as the great Jaskier,” he manages.

“…You don’t think…” the second in command starts to say.

The captain’s face twists into something horrifyingly determined. “Doesn’t matter what I think. The level of the orders for the capture of the White Wolf? We’re taking no chances.”

Jaskier’s heart finishes its descent into his stomach.

“Not to mention the bounty,” another soldier says, relishing.

“Now, gentlemen,” Jaskier says. He wants to drop a hand to Jacek’s ruff, hold him in place, but it might get bitten off.

Maybe he _shouldn’t_ hold onto him, anyway. Might increase their chances of getting out alive.

But what chance does one wolf have against eight fully armed and armored men?

“Really, is this quite necessary? I mean, I’ve of course _heard_ of the famous—and, you know, not actually _literal_ —White Wolf, and I promise you, none of the stories say he has fur—”

“You know,” the captain says, “you do look kind of like the description of the White Wolf’s bard.”

“The…the what now?”

“Oh, did you not know?” the second in command jeers. “Order’s out on everyone who knew the bastard, what with how he evaded the Emperor for over a season. Bard included.”

“Right.” Jaskier swallows. “Well then! It’s a very good thing I’m not _that_ bard, or this might get awkward indeed—”

“Already did,” the captain says, and levels his sword at Jaskier’s neck.

And that? Is when all hell breaks loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fingers crossed that the Polish baby name website I've been using doesn't, like, suck lol


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Blood, death (of bad guys), violence, so much cussing. Skip to "That's all he needs" if you need to skip the fight, but fyi the blood warning covers like the whole chapter

The wolf tenses up the second his packmate does.

He’d already been on guard. He and his packmate had been traveling alone on the dirt path for hours when he’d picked up the noise of a group of humans, and their scents not long after.

But when his packmate sees them coming, his packmate starts to smell of fear.

His packmate is making a few repetitive human-noises, but none of them are the wolf’s name, so he ignores them. He pays more attention to the rapid beat of his packmate’s heart and the way his eyes dart to the bushes and back to the soldiers.

The wolf is ready to run, but his packmate doesn’t move them off the dirt path. Keeps walking forward, slow and tense, toward the humans.

Are they fighting, then? The wolf wouldn’t mind a fight.

There are enough humans that protecting his packmate will be difficult, but he’ll manage.

As they keep walking, the wolf stares down the humans, letting a growl emerge from his throat. He holds himself ready to lunge, and bares his teeth. Lets the humans know they should be wary.

They approach anyway. Shouting at his packmate from a distance. The wolf doesn’t understand the human noises, but they only make his packmate more nervous.

Then they unsheathe their long, metal claws. The smell of old, dried blood clinging to the humans increases.

The wolf snarls. The humans are foolish enough to ignore him.

The lead human lays his long, long claw against his packmate’s throat.

The wolf is done holding back for his packmate’s sake. He _lunges_.

The first human goes down easy, caught off guard. Arrogant, to let his guard down in the face of the wolf, snarling and angry.

The long, metal claw falls to the ground before it can even twitch toward the wolf, and the human’s throat gives way under his jaws.

The next two humans are almost as easy, frozen by shock. And the wolf was _made_ to fight.

His claws go through the throat of the one nearest him, and before that one even hits the ground, the wolf has the next prone beneath him, armor bashed in and throat ripped out.

But by that time, the other five are wary. Grouped up, their metal claws in better guards.

The wolf bends low and growls. Ready to lunge.

The humans—the _enemies_ —are not smart enough to turn tail and run.

They’re also not smart enough to attack as a pack.

The fourth and fifth ones both attack, swiping their metal claws in broad arcs, but they’re not working together to hem the wolf in. It’s easy to duck under the blow of the fourth, turn away from the fifth’s strike even as he keeps moving.

The fourth human is panicking, now, flailing uselessly with his claw. He misses the wolf entirely as the wolf crashes into his legs, claws reaching around the tough hide on their fronts to the exposed back, and _tearing_. The human shrieks in pain but goes down. Hobbled, maybe permanently.

He’ll finish dealing with that human when the others are dead. He has to finish quickly, before the others can attack his packmate again.

The wolf is rising, surveying his targets, preparing to attack, when—

Two of the enemies are running toward his packmate, brandishing their metal claws at his packmate. Aiming high—for his packmate’s _throat_.

There’s his packmate’s voice, shrill and uneven. And his packmate’s scent, spiking with fear.

But the wolf doesn’t care. He _needs_ to intercept them before they make it. He ignores the enemies’ loud gestures and shouts, ignores his packmate is trying to say something back.

It wouldn’t matter if it had. These men are already dead.

The wolf lunges, landing full-bodied on the fifth human, knocking away his arm and making his sword fall to the ground. He had gone for the one closer to his packmate, first, and the sixth human has startled back. Keeps moving back. The wolf stares into the human’s eyes as he bends his head and tears out the throat beneath him.

Blood drips from the wolf’s jaws as he growls louder. The sixth human is shouting, gesturing toward him. Maybe threatening his packmate to make him step down, maybe telling his packmate to make him retreat. Maybe some human bullshit.

The wolf’s claws turn the man’s shouts into screams.

Relief shoots through his packmate’s scent, mixing in with the fear.

There are two men left. They’ll be dead soon enough.

They charged at him, screaming, stinking of fear and desperation and old blood. A reminder of why he cannot let them live. They tried to hurt his packmate, and they _will_ hurt others, if they are not stopped.

And stopping them is easy. Their armor is nothing to his claws, nor his skill. It is easy to find the gaps, even to dent and puncture it with his teeth and his weight.

Within moments, the soldiers are dead. His packmate is safe, smelling more and more of relief. The wolf is, too, he knows, though his packmate wouldn’t be able to scent it, not like he should be—

The wolf whips his head around to survey his packmate, to look for further threats. He can’t smell any pain, but he needs to make sure—

His packmate is fine.

That’s all he needs.

He turns back to the corpse beneath him—but the forest jerks sideways.

Something is _wrong_. Another threat? Poison? The wolf’s head hurts, suddenly, throbbing—

Geralt freezes at the bitter, copper taste of blood.

He’d been—

He’d been at an inn, something had been wrong—

The blood is tacky, sticking to his teeth, why are his teeth so sharp—

Oh. Right.

He’s a wolf, and now he’s away from the inn, and someone is talking in the background, and he’s surrounded by the corpses of humans he seems to have mauled to death.

“Jacek!” It’s Jaskier’s voice, shouting. To another human? But Geralt doesn’t smell anyone else, not anyone living, anyway, and a quick scan reveals no other motion. “Jacek, thank Melitele you’re okay, I was so _worried_ —”

He scents the air. There’s blood spattered across Jaskier’s doublet, but none of it is his, Jaskier is unharmed—

And that thought makes something trip out of the blankness between the last time he was _aware_ and the moment he came to. It yields patchily but quickly, and with the increasing feel that of unease, that he needs to guard his packmate—

Hmm. Well.

He did that, it appears. Jaskier is fine, and the Nilfgaardians are dead.

Jaskier is only a few paces from him now—and if there _had_ been danger, Geralt would’ve been fucked, and Jaskier with him. But it’s just Jaskier, crouching down a few feet from the head of the corpse, just outside the edge of the pool of blood.

“ _Thank you_ , Jacek, what a good wolf, you’re such a good wolf, and that goes whether or not you can understand me, honestly, that was primed to go very, very badly— I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d hold up too well in Nilfgaard’s dungeons.”

Geralt’s ears go flat and a growl rumbles in his chest at the thought.

Jaskier looks startled, for a moment, but he stays unafraid. So that’s at least something. “I know, they were quite awful, weren’t they? Such terrible brutes, and I don’t even want to think what they’d have done to my lute! Honestly—”

Jaskier is surprised to have encountered the patrol, it occurs to Geralt, as he tunes out the bard’s babble with a slow, sinking feeling. Jaskier is surprised…because this isn’t Nilfgaard’s conquered territory. The village they’d passed through had been whole, unmarked by the horrors of war. And Geralt may not know where he is, but he knows that he hasn’t seen a refugee camp or a Nilfgaard soldier since he changed and fled.

He’d fled south, mostly, he now knows, but not _that_ far south.

A full Nilfgaard patrol scouting in full armor, just outside a village barely more tense than usual, and surrounded by peaceful, unburned fields and forests?

Whenever they are, the region is sympathetic to Nilfgaard. Sympathetic enough to let their soldiers traipse through without a fight, or even apparent unhappiness.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Geralt says, thoughtlessly, but it comes out as a bark.

“I know, Jacek, it’s been that kind of day, hasn’t it?” Jaskier asks. “But why don’t you get off that horrid little dead man, and come over here, hmm? We should be on the road anyway, who knows if another patrol will come through, and the sooner we find a river the less miniscule my chances of salvaging this doublet.”

Geralt has to get Jaskier out of there, _immediately_.

He’ll deal later with the thought that Jaskier hates him so much, he had to change “the wolf’s” name.

Jaskier is still rambling—trying to coax him away from the site of his massacre, ironically enough.

But they need to leave much, much more urgently than Jaskier realizes. And take many more steps to conceal their tracks.

Nilfgaard will be hunting for whoever butchered an entire patrol in supposedly friendly country. And every villager for miles around will be looking for someone to blame, once they know, to keep it from falling on their own heads.

Or rather, their own necks.

He moves, as fast as he can without scaring Jaskier, to stand next to him. Registers how Jaskier eases, but barks before Jaskier can keep talking, and immediately takes off for the woods.

“Jacek, no!” Jaskier shouts. “Come back here, where are you even _going_ —”

Geralt snarls quietly.

Goes back to Jaskier and shoves his chest against the bard’s hips. He can feel the blood weighing down his fur, seeping up against his skin, and it’s going to be smeared all over Jaskier’s fine clothes.

He doesn’t let that stop him—there’s no reason why he should. The only important thing is getting a confused and still protesting Jaskier _away_.

“What’s so urgent, boy?” Something Geralt has not been called in a _long_ time. “I mean, I suppose it’s obvious what’s so urgent,” Jaskier says, but he’s grabbing his bag as he says it, making only a half-hearted attempt to resist Geralt’s pushing. “But hiding in the woods is not going to get us far enough away from here.” Not like _Jaskier_ would do it. “Far better to use the road, and anyway, I’m sure we have a bit, this isn’t Nilfgaard’s territory yet.” Except that it clearly might as well be.

Geralt growls.

“Stop that!” Jaskier says, and _swats his nose_.

Geralt’s ears go flat and his tail tucks between his legs without his permission. He knows he’s a wolf at the moment, but _seriously_?

“Come on, Jacek, let’s just get back on the road, you did such a great job fighting off those nasty men, but we should really head _away_ , on the _road_.” Yes. The nasty men whose bloody corpses Jaskier had just _swatted him_ in front of.

Geralt growls. _Fuck_. Fuck Jaskier for being so stubborn, fuck the bloody sorceress for thinking she was bloody hilarious, fuck Nilfgaard for _existing_.

He doesn’t have _time_ for this.

But Jaskier is the self-declared king of fucking stubbornness, and far too stupid to be cowed by a gigantic wolf that he thinks might be a monster _growling_ at him.

Geralt stops pushing, ignoring the blood staining Jaskier as he pulls away.

“ _Thank_ you, Jacek, I’m so glad you’re prepared to be reasonable.”

“ _Stay_ ,” Geralt growls, though it comes out as a literal growl, before turning to the ground in front of him.

It’s hard-packed by the passage of thousands of travelers over many, many years. There's no loose dirt for him to scrape up.

...He'll just have to be glad Jaskier has a strong stomach. Because the next thing Geralt does is the only thing he _can_ do: reach his _fucking paw_ for the pool of blood he's barely standing outside of, dip it in, and bring it down to the dry, hard earth in front of him.

“Well that's a bit morbid, don't you think,” Jaskier mutters, and _yes_ , yes he does, but he isn't exactly swimming in options, now is he?

Shaping the _G_ with an unfamiliar limb, one entirely unsuited to the task, isn't easy, even with weeks of memories of actually _being_ a wolf floating around in his fucking head.

But Jaskier isn't looking. He's glancing anxiously up and down the road, saying, “Really, it would be quite nice if we could _go_ now,” because he picked the most annoying possible time to develop a sense of self-preservation.

Geralt's fucking paw runs dry one stroke into the _E_ , and he has to dip it in the fucking blood again.

 _At least that soldier did_ something _useful_ , part of Geralt grumbles, even though that useful thing was _die bloody_.

Jaskier's twitching, the way he does when he gets actually worried but isn't able to act on it. “Really, Jacek, this isn't quite the time for relishing in your kills…”

Geralt feels his shoulders hunch and his tail dip further between his legs. Because the fucking wolf body he's in hasn't been doing enough weird, annoying things.

But by then he's finished the _R_ , so he closes his red-stained teeth on a fold of fabric in the side of Jaskier's doublet, and pulls.

“ _Jacek_! My _doublet_! Honestly, how _could—_ ”

Then Jaskier sees the blood-written letters.

“Fuck,” he says, swallowing, then gives a short, dark laugh. “Well that's not fucking ominous.”

Geralt turns back to his work. Jaskier hasn't seen him in the better part of a year, and after how they parted, of course Geralt isn't the first place his mind goes. Probably not even in the top ten.

“And you!” Jaskier says, having mustered some indignance instead of any reasonable emotion like fear, as Geralt makes the first swipe of the _A_. “I _asked_ if you were really a wolf like ten times! _And_ if you could understand me, so don't you dare try to use that as a loophole!”

Geralt huffs and keeps writing. It’s not like he can _tell_ Jaskier that it wasn’t on purpose.

“I mean _really_ , what were you doing acting like you didn’t understand me, letting me— and, you know what, you’re not allowed to find that bath awkward, not even if you thought it was, because it was all _your_ fault for not telling me…this…”

Geralt finishes up the _L_.

“Oh, no.” Jaskier’s voice more both more faint and more firm. “No, you are not allowed to be spelling what I think you’re spelling.”

Then Geralt finishes the _T_.

Jaskier’s face goes through a number of rapid contortions. “Okay,” he says, face still contorting, “that better be you telling me you liked the first name I called you better. That better not be you actually telling me that you’re _Geralt_ of _Rivia_.”

Geralt would raise a skeptical eyebrow if he could. He nods instead. A bit clumsily, thanks to his altered anatomy.

But going by his face, Jaskier didn’t need the nod. “ _Fuck_ , you’re Geralt, what the _fuck_ , I even said it was too ironic—” He wraps his hand around the back of his own neck and presses down firmly, head aimed toward the ground. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says again, softer.

Geralt empathizes with Jaskier’s many, many curses. But they still don’t have time.

He barks instead, and tugs against Jaskier’s doublet again with his teeth, pulling him toward the forest.

Jaskier’s eyes switch between him and the tree line, brows furrowed and mouth taut. Geralt pushes harder.

Finally, Jaskier throws his arms up and lets out a loud, aggressive sigh. “ _Fine_! Fine. I suppose, since you’re actually fucking Geralt of fucking Rivia, you’re _probably_ worth listening to when you say we need to hide from Nilfgaard in the _fucking_ forest.”

 _No, really_. Geralt’s mental tone could win prizes for annoyance.

But Jaskier has turned himself around and started walking to the edge of the road. So that’s enough.

Geralt leads the bard away from the road and the bodies as fast as a human can handle. They make decent progress into the wood, Jaskier clearly still used to walking for hours and hours at a time, even if he grumbles the whole way through.

It will have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Finally!
> 
> Geralt has solved one of his problems...and in doing so created about 20 new problems. (Don't be too hard on him--he's having a hard and brain-warping time of it.)
> 
> But don't worry. This isn't the last we'll see of our wolfie boy ;)


End file.
